philanthropy is

I have become very tired of people asking me for money.

I knew that it would happen, but I thought it would be easy to say, "Look, I'm just a student. True, I have white skin, but that does not make me inherently rich," after which the supplicants would leave me in peace, disappointed but understanding.

I did not forsee that those who would come in hopes of a handout would almost invariably be those who did not speak a word of English. It turns out that it's difficult to describe one's poverty to someone who doesn't speak ones language when one is dressed in nicer clothes than they and is carrying around a laptop. Further complicating my determined no-handout stance is the amount of cash requested: a boy initially pleads for five shillings (one shilling is approximately 1.3 cents), until my stonewall refusal has him bargaining for one. A young man, sans several teeth, comes reeking of alcohol and hopes I will give him the equivalent of a quarter. This request follows intense negotiations, none of which I understand. They include the laborious writing of the words "cita misonae," "unisaine," and finally "mainti," in a shaking, spidery script, which I belatedly realize could only mean that he is asking for money to buy booze.

I give him the money he asks for and the next day offer an old man the same so that he can repair his bicycle. I give them money not because I am a good person, but rather because I want them to get out of my house. These transactions make me feel awful. The sums involved are so pitiously insignificant to me that it seems illogical to deny them unless I am obstinately steadfast on doing my best Scrooge imitation. Yet many well-meaning individuals have warned me that these sorts of minor handouts quickly snowball into hundreds of selfish demands.

A group of little girls comes to see me periodically dressed in their Sunday best. I am certain they want money, but they don't know the English words necessary to ask for it. As the days go by, I am also increasingly certain that their parents have put them up to it, which makes me angry. I think so because they are always dressed so nicely and are immensely shy, timidly hiding behind one another and staring at me fearfully. I greet them, and then we stare at each other for several minutes. Eventually I become uncomfortable, or at least even more uncomfortable, until I pass some vague threshold of uncomfortableness that makes me retreat indoors and draw the curtains.

One of the microscopists who works in the clinic assures me it's ok to turn the beggars down. "They don't understand you're a student," he tells me, corroborating my own thoughts on the matter. "They see you with your equipment and your white skin and they assume you're rich." I comfort myself by trying to think he's right. The boy who asked for one shilling--one goddam shilling--had been very friendly to me, and I ended up giving him a whole ten shilling coin. The look of astonished joy on his face was horrible.